


Woot Canow

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Community: mcsmooch, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-27
Updated: 2009-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney's office door is left open on the tacit understanding that staffers only approach it if it's very important, so he doesn't look up from his laptop when someone raps at the door, just snaps, "This better be important!"</p><p>"Wodney?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woot Canow

**Author's Note:**

> Written to distract me from the wisdom tooth I'm cutting :D This is an SGA/West Wing AU, based on The West Wing 1.15, 'Celestial Navigation.' Several lines of dialogue are taken from the episode and/or are reworked.

Rodney's office door is left open on the tacit understanding that staffers only approach it if it's very important, so he doesn't look up from his laptop when someone raps at the door, just snaps, "This better be important!"

"Wodney?"

Rodney blinks at the spreadsheet on his screen for a discombobulated moment, then looks up. Teyla's standing in his doorway, and though she's as impeccably dressed as always in a print dress and perilously high heels, her hair's dishevelled and she's got the palm of one hand pressed to a visibly-swollen cheek. "What the hell happened to you?

"I had woot canaw."

"What?"

"I had _woot canaw_."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Here." He thrusts a legal pad and pen at her and then peers at Teyla's looped scrawl until it resolves into words. "You had _root canal_? You can't have a root canal, you have the briefing this afternoon!" He peers at her. "Are you in pain?"

"I had _dentaw suwgewy_, Wodney." Teyla pokes at her jaw with a pained expression. "I am in some pain, yes, and I am awauh of the bwiefing."

"You can't say that any more," Rodney tells her. "You sound ridiculous, and the White House press secretary can't sound ridiculous. I think it's in your contract."

"I have to cancew the bwiefing."

"You can't cancel the briefing! It's a very very important briefing!"

"Wook at me, Wodney," Teyla says, her mouth a grim line. "I cannot give any bwiefing this aftehnoon."

"Why not?"

"I am not physically able to say 'bwiefing'."

"Oh please, Teyla, I carried on working after I got shot in the ass with an arrow by the First Gentleman—"

"Wonon has explained many times that that was an accident."

"It didn't feel like an accident!" Rodney says. Five months later and he's still affronted by the memory and has the scar on his ass to vindicate him. He'll never quite understand why President Weir chose to marry someone like Ronon Dex. Apart from the obvious, of course. "Anyway," he continues, flapping a hand at Teyla, "when can you take that cotton out?"

"Two houws. I'w have Hawwing cancew the bwiefing. We can weschedu—we can postpone."

"No," Rodney says, standing up from behind his desk. "No, we're still doing this. We have to wrap up this whole, whole _debacle_ with Kenmore and move them back to the bill signing. This briefing has to go ahead."

"No one ewse in my depawtment knows enough about it, Wodney," Teyla points out, folding her arms.

"I can do it!"

"Absowutely not."

"Why not? I know the background, I know the details inside out, I'm the ideal person to take over!" He shrugs back on his suit jacket and dabs ineffectually at the mustard stain on his tie with a bit of Kleenex.

"You get hostiwe. That is not an appwoach we should take with Kenmowuh."

Rodney peers at her. "I get... hot stuff? I appreciate the compliment, but in a workplace environment, I don't think—"

"Hostiwe! Unfwiendly, agwessive—hostiwe."

Rodney _hmpfhs_. "I do not get hostile! I do—well, okay, I don't get randomly hostile, I get hostile when it's necessary. I get hostile when there are Republicans or stupid people or Alaskan senators who see Russians everywhere."

"Pwease get John to do it."

"John went to Foggy Bottom."

Teyla's eyes widen. "What?"

Rodney's shoulders deflate a little. "Damn, I was hoping you'd say Foggy Bottom. John's with the speechwriters."

"Teal'c?"

"Teal'c's with Jack and the President."

"Maybe Aiden," and Rodney is _not_ going to let himself be offended by the hint of desperation in Teyla's voice.

"Haha, yes, because the President's personal aide would conduct a briefing better than her Deputy Chief of Staff."

Teyla shifts uneasily from foot to foot.

"Oh, forget it," Rodney snaps, "I will do the briefing, it will be fine, I will seal the deal and then I will be the bigger person and _not_ say I told you so. What do you think of _that_?"

"Wodney, pwease be vewy cawefuw. Kenmowe is dangewous. He could destwoy us."

"Your faith is touching."

***

Amelia sits in Teyla's office with her and watches McKay take the press conference from bad to worse to catastrophic.

"Did he just say the Pwess Cowuh is stupid?" Teyla asks her. She seems a little shell-shocked.

"I think so," Amelia says. She's almost impressed; it takes a lot of wilful obliviousness to screw up something this completely. On the TV, she sees Jennifer Keller from the _New York Times_ ask if the president has a plan to address growing economic inflation.

"Oh boy," Amelia says under her breath. She reaches into her handbag, pulls out a bar of really good Swiss chocolate and silently passes it to Teyla.

"Yeah, Jennifer," Rodney says onscreen, rolling his eyes. "We have a secret inflation plan."

"Oh my god," Teyla says and leans forward to rest her head on her desk. Amelia hands her the bottle of Ibuprofen, too.

***

Radek is waiting outside the Briefing Room when Rodney leaves. "I cannot believe you did that, McKay."

"I can fix it!"

"How?" Radek is polishing his glasses so furiously that Rodney's surprised he hasn't worn them away.

"I can fix this!"

"I don't think you can, Rodney."

"See, you always do that, Radek. Always with the undermining, there's never any support from you."

"You have my support, Rodney."

"Do I?"

Radek shakes his head. "No. Is time for you to go into your office and come up with a secret plan to fight inflation."

"Oh, that is charming," Rodney says. Radek just snickers.

Rodney rounds the corner to his office to find Teyla standing in the door of his office; behind her, he can see a familiar mop of hair lounging at his desk. "Teyla," he says, attempting to head her off at the pass, "I can explain."

"I would like," Teyla says, as icily as she can manage with a half pound of cotton in her mouth, "to know what exacwy happened in thewe."

"Listen, Teyla—"

"My son is two and he could have done a bettuh job."

"I can fix this!" Rodney says, throwing his hands up in the air. "There's no reason for you to get so emotional about this."

"Oh, you shouldn't have said that," Radek says in a low voice.

"Excuse me?" Teyla says, narrowing her eyes before turning on her heel and stalking back towards her office.

"You do realise," Radek says, "that she will tell your sister that you said that."

"That I said _what_?"

"This is why you have no success with women, McKay," Radek says, and disappears back into the relative safety of the bullpen.

"I don't want any success with women!" Rodney yells after him, which gains him nothing other than a couple of smirks from some of the staffers. "You're all fired," he tells them, rolling his eyes and walking back into his office. "Up," he tells John, who has of course commandeered Rodney's ergonomic desk chair and put his feet up on top of a stack of files.

"So my current theory," John says mildly, not looking up from the golfing magazine he's pretending to read, "is that you fell down a lot as a kid and hit your head on something really hard."

"Do not start with me," Rodney says, "I feel really bad about this."

"Well," John says, tossing the magazine down onto the desk, "I guess that's all that matters. I'm sure neither the President nor Jack will want to yell at you once they find out you _feel really bad_ about it."

"Oh my god. Do you think she saw?"

John arches an eyebrow at him.

"Right, yes, yes, of course she saw. She's Weir, she sees everything."

"A secret plan to fight inflation?"

"Oh god. Do you think it's too late to make a break for Mexico? Or Canada, I could go back to Canada. They like me there, I could get used to wearing flannel."

"She'd just send Ronon after you. He runs marathons, he's pretty quick."

"Please make sure that the epitaph on my grave is something good," Rodney says mournfully, closing his eyes. "Just—I don't know, he died for god and country, something classic."

He hears the creak of the desk chair as John stands up, then the brush of gentle lips on his forehead. "First, you're an atheist, Rodney. Second, you're going to be around for a while yet."

"Deaaaaaath," Rodney croons softly.

"I mean," John continues blithely, "long as you can come up with a secret plan to fight inflation."

Rodney discovered a long time ago that the best way to shut up the White House Deputy Communications Director is to kiss him quiet, so he kicks the door closed behind him and leans into John's warmth—it's the one plan he doesn't have to second-guess.


End file.
